State pension age reform leaves 'large number of women worse off'

03 Aug 2017

A report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has suggested that women aged between 60 and 62 have become ‘worse off’ as a result of the recent rise in the state pension age.

Between 2010 and 2016, the state pension age for women increased from age 60 to 63. The government intends to align the state pension age for women with the state pension age for men, which is currently age 65.

The report found that women between the ages of 60 and 62 have experienced a £32 reduction in their weekly household income since the change.

Poverty rates amongst women in this age group have risen ‘sharply’, the IFS suggested.

Jonathan Cribb, Senior Research Economist at the IFS, said: ‘The tax and benefit system is much more generous to those above the state pension age than those below it.

‘Since both rich and poor women are losing out by, on average, roughly similar amounts, the reform increases income poverty rates among households containing a woman who has reached age 60 but has not yet reached her state pension age.’